1. law, govt and politics
2. immigration

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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Refugee
Settlement
Can communities cope?
By Maknun Gameledin-Ashami, Libby Cooper, Barry Knight
2002
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Yesim Guzelpinar, Refugee Community
Organisation Development Officer, based in the Westminster Diocese
Refugee Service, for her help in conducting interviews in London,
Liverpool and Margate. Yesim was invaluable in helping to identify
appropriate organisations with whom to conduct interviews.
Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Foreword to
CES Research
We would like to thank Tzeggai Yohannes Deres and Maria Kozlowski
from the Evelyn Oldfield Unit for facilitating the process and reviewing
the report.
Many thanks are also due to Sue Blackmore for entering the survey data
into the computer and to Alistair Cooper for analysing the findings.
We would also like to thank the following readers who provided some
very useful comments on the report:
John Amuor Kuol, Sudanese Relief & Rehab Association
Roger Bronkhurst, Interchange Legal Advisory Service
Dipali Chandra, The Barrow Cadbury Trust
Peter Deans, Community Fund
Stephen Downs, GONE
Fiona Ellis, Northern Rock Foundation
Terence Finley, Millfield House Foundation
Georgina Fletcher, North of England Refugee Service
Gilly Green, Comic Relief
Alison Harker, Atlantic Philanthropies Ltd
Elahe Panahi, Evelyn Oldfield Unit
Steve Roberts, The Leigh Trust
Jack Shieh OBE, Vietnamese Mental Health Services
Dr Carolyne Tah, Home Office
Most importantly, we would like to thank all interviewees in the four
regions who allowed us to spend a long time in their offices and who
patiently answered our many questions. Without them this report would
not have been possible.
Copyright
© Charities Evaluation Services and Evelyn Oldfield Unit, 2002
ISBN 1 897963 18 1
Anyone wishing to use the information within this report, or to pursue research
based on any part of it, should obtain permission from the Evelyn Oldfield Unit
or Charities Evaluation Services.
Published by Charities Evaluation Services
Designed by Information Design Workshop
All photographs by Carlos Reyes-Manzo, Andes Press Agency
Printed by Datum Colourprint
Charity number: 803602
Charities Evaluation Services is a company limited by guarantee.
Registered in England, number 2510318
2
The following report sets out to give a measure of the involvement of refugee
community organisations in the settlement of their communities in the UK.
The opportunity - in a field generally lacking in longitudinal studies of refugee
migration - to engage in a critical hands-on approach to diversity issues, has been
a challenge for both partners in the research. Charities Evaluation Services and the
Evelyn Oldfield Unit are organisations that play significant strategic roles in
enabling organisations to shape the future direction of their service provision.
Their partnership research demonstrates the value of shared resources and
insights, and taps into organisational development theory, whilst validating the
experiences of refugee groups themselves.
Key issues have emerged from the research: the destabilising effect of rapidly
changing legislation on refugee community organisations; their lack of exposure,
through lack of opportunity - particularly those outside London - to policy and
strategy development; the failure of funders to ensure community-centred
resourcing with appropriate underpinning development support; and the
inadequacy of monitoring and evaluation skills within the groups.
But the research also highlights the potential role of refugee intermediaries in the
development of the refugee sector; it indicates the wealth of refugee community
organisations in social and development terms, and puts forward a framework on
how British institutions and refugee groups can play a mutual role in
strengthening strategic and integrative action.
Although the study sample was small, the research envisages a continuum
approach for improvement, with additional future monitoring of the groups. It
therefore makes an important contribution to understanding current
developmental trends within the refugee sector.
It is important to place the research firmly within the context of integration:
without the mutuality of civic engagement between various sectors that can lead
to a ‘good society’ model, many refugee community groups can remain ‘hidden’,
with mainstream developmental approaches by-passing their aspirations and
contributions, and ignoring their role as a haven for their communities – they are
the echoes of their history and diaspora, and as such, the only bridges to real
integration.
Tzeggai Yohannes Deres and Maria Kozlowski
Evelyn Oldfield Unit
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
About Charities Evaluation Services
Charities Evaluation Services (CES) is committed to increasing
the effectiveness of the voluntary sector and was established in
1990. It works with voluntary organisations, their funders and
with different levels of government both in the UK and
internationally. CES provides training, advice, consultancy,
information and capacity building on organisational
development, evaluation and quality matters. It also provides
state-of-the-art external evaluation services and designs
evaluation systems.
Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Contents
Page
Definitions
6
Executive Summary
7
1.
CES publishes PQASSO, the practical quality assurance system
for small organisations.
Charities Evaluation Services
4 Coldbath Square
London EC1R 5HL
2.
Tel: 020 7713 5722
Fax: 020 7713 5692
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.ces-vol.org.uk
About Evelyn Oldfield Unit
The Evelyn Oldfield Unit is an independent, non-partisan,
membership-based, charitable organisation, with the aim to
provide, develop and coordinate specialist aid and support
services for established refugee organisations, in order to
increase their capacity and potential for meeting the needs of
their communities.
Its service delivery includes university accredited and customised
training packages, consultancies, advice, and learning forums,
focusing on organisational and community accountability. It
works in partnership with academic and research institutions,
and government and funding agencies, to develop strategic
information about the refugee and migrant sector.
Evelyn Oldfield Unit
356 Holloway Road
London N7 6PA
Tel: 020 7700 0100 x226
Fax: 020 7700 8136
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.evelynoldfield.co.uk
4
3.
Introduction
13
Legislation
14
The situation in the regions
21
Choice of study areas
22
A new system
23
Arriving to a grey outlook
23
The contribution of community groups
24
Limitations of community groups
25
Organisation development matters
26
Conclusion
27
Refugee Community Organisations in London
29
4.
5.
Organisations’ resources
30
RCO activities
31
Users of RCOs
33
Other activities
34
Organisation development
35
First steps to integration
41
Criteria for integration
41
Recommendations
46
Home Office
46
Refugee intermediaries
47
RCOs
47
Host community
48
Appendix A: Sample used for the London interviews
49
Appendix B: Interview schedules
50
Appendix C: The organisations in the research study
59
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Definitions
The following definitions have been drawn from recent research conducted on
behalf of the Home Office1. These meanings are used through the report, even
though the distinctions do not have universal acceptance.
Refugees
‘Recognised refugees who are granted indefinite leave to remain within
the terms of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees or those
given exceptional leave to remain as persons in need of protection in
accordance with obligations under ECHR and the Convention against
Torture’.
Asylum Seekers
‘Those awaiting a decision on refugee status’.
Integration
‘Integration is a long-term, complex, two-way process in which refugees
take part in all aspects of life, while UK society benefits from the
potential of the newcomers: this requires adaptation on both sides.
Integration involves the process of acquiring civil, social, political, human
and cultural rights for refugees, while maintaining their cultural and
ethnic diversity. Integration, while encompassing both the organic and
functional aspects of settlement, is not synonymous with assimilation
that is the loss of the refugee’s identity within the host culture’.
Executive Summary
1 Lawry-White, J, Synthesis of
Seven IRSS/NASS Integration
Research Projects, for the Home
Office, 2001
Overview
This report documents the findings of joint research carried out during 2000 and
2001 by Charities Evaluation Services and the Evelyn Oldfield Unit. The purpose
of the research was to assess the contribution of Refugee Community
Organisations (RCOs) to the settlement in the UK of the increased numbers of
asylum seekers and refugees who are affected by the dispersal policy in the
Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
RCOs are typically formed by a small number of committed refugees who often
operate from a private residence or a church hall before gradually acquiring
premises and funding. They tend to be predominantly nationality groups and
often begin their activities by providing mother tongue classes and supplementary
schools as part of helping refugees to maintain their cultural identity. Their
gatherings enable asylum seekers and refugees to come together, share
information about their country of origin and discuss issues of concern to them.
The research was carried out through in-depth interviews with members of 22
RCOs in London to benchmark their activities and also with members of local
support services for dispersed asylum seekers and refugees in Newcastle,
Liverpool and Margate.
Legislation
Over the past ten years, there have been four major changes to the asylum
system, which have clearly affected the implementation of the system.
The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 introduced fundamental changes to the
asylum system concerning treatment of asylum seekers and the process of
claiming asylum, which resulted in moving the responsibility for asylum seekers
from local authorities to a new national agency, the National Asylum Support
Services.
The new policy had two main aims: to deter asylum seekers from entering the UK
by reducing the level of welfare benefits paid to them; to relieve the burden from
London and the South East by dispersing asylum seekers to other metropolitan
areas in England, Wales and Scotland.
However, it was discovered that there was no relationship between the level of
welfare benefits and the number of people seeking asylum. Also, between 1 April
2000 and March 2001, the number of asylum seekers dispersed was very low,
which showed that the dispersal system was not working properly. Some of the
regional consortia, which had been charged with providing accommodation and
other services, asserted that the low dispersal figures were due to the high level of
disappearance of asylum seekers who preferred not to leave London and the
South East and that asylum seekers preferred cash and vouchers to
accommodation.
In October 2000, the government launched a new strategy for integrating
refugees in the UK, which intended to meet the needs of refugees in terms of
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accommodation, education and training, employment, access to health care and
community development. To this end, the government would provide three
funding streams to help resource refugee organisations. By September 2001, it
had become clear that certain aspects of the strategy were in disarray and the
Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 was duly modified to abolish vouchers and to
overhaul the dispersal system.
Key findings from the research in Newcastle upon Tyne,
Liverpool and Margate
Research was conducted in Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool and Margate to find
out the capacity of RCOs to deliver services and other benefits, such as
reinforcement of linguistic and cultural identity, to their refugee communities. The
three areas chosen were very different in terms of their Black and Minority Ethnic
(BME) communities.
In all three areas, the legislation had created enormous changes with a huge
increase in the numbers of refugees arriving. Asylum seekers were being settled
into localities where few agencies had experience of hosting them and where
networks of support are absent or under-developed, resulting in great difficulties
both for organisations and asylum seekers. Asylum seekers were housed in hardto-let housing in the poorest areas. The host communities had little experience of
multi-culturalism, and refugee issues in particular, which led to overt racism and
abuse of refugees in all three areas, particularly in Margate. This meant that
asylum seekers tended to be pre-occupied with getting by, which affected the
capacity for self-organisation and support for the integration process by refugee
organisations. Most interviewees in Liverpool and Newcastle said that many
asylum seekers left the regions and moved to London, although this was not
happening in Margate where prospects for work were greater.
Despite these problems, RCOs were making a significant contribution to the
settlement of refugees. They were:
• providing cultural and emotional support and opportunities for developing
identity
• providing practical assistance, which mainly involved advice and interpretation,
communication and cultural mediation
• raising awareness and understanding, and promoting positive attitudes in the
community
• providing expert and regional knowledge to inform policy development.
There was universal agreement among the interviewees that problems of capacity
impaired the ability of RCOs to perform these roles. They faced a wide range of
demands with very limited resources. They commonly had weak structures, little
money, sometimes with no meeting place, limited knowledge of the British
system, and dependency on a small number of enthusiastic individuals whose
dedication led them to work very hard. This was made worse because they
tended to be in a weak position in accessing factors supportive to successful
organisation development such as resources, energy, contentment, wide contacts,
access to networks, knowledge of the system, management support and good
living space. The consequence of this was that RCOs were able to perform a
‘defensive’ function but not a ‘transformative’ function, which is vital if they are
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
to effect the changes in local power necessary for true integration. In part, the
reason is that RCOs are too small and too few in number in the provisional areas.
RCOs in the three areas varied. Some were old organisations and had transformed
themselves into purely cultural organisations or fallen into disuse. Some of these
organisations had been reactivated by the new arrivals. Other refugees had taken
some time to form groups, partly because of the long period of waiting for an
asylum decision. It was only when they needed money and resources that they
went through the process of formal registration and this is when they needed
external assistance. Support services were under-developed and, for many
established agencies, the refugee sector was invisible, but there were some
refugee agencies that offered RCOs support and development.
Key findings from the research in London
By way of creating a benchmark for RCOs, our research looked in-depth at 22
London-based RCOs in order to understand their growth patterns and to assess
to what extent they support the process of settlement.
There are between 400 and 500 RCOs in London, and their structures and
networks have become more complex and sophisticated over time. From the mid
1980s, funders provided money to London-based RCOs and later on a very few
provided free consultants to help with their organisational development. In the
mid 1990s, the Evelyn Oldfield Unit was established by several funders, as a result
of their own findings, to provide technical consultancy and training support for
the development of RCOs.
Our findings suggest that there are two main differences between London and
the provinces:
• The level of both membership and volunteering among London RCOs was
much higher
• The London RCOs received a much higher amount of funding.
The majority of RCOs in London received funding from their local authority, but
unlike other mainstream organisations, they received no government funding, but
received a higher proportion from trusts and foundations and the
Lottery/Millennium. This funding allowed RCOs to rent offices and thereby
establish evidence of professional credibility in a way that would have been
unthinkable for their provincial counterparts. It also enabled a scale of activity
greatly in excess of that found in the provinces with service delivery being the
dominant activity, which mainly involved advice work. There were three main
types of advice:
• Accessing the UK welfare system, which required considerable training for staff
• Culture and confidence building to develop and maintain the cultural identity
of users, promote positive attitudes and create stability in communities
• Accessing the labour market by providing help with learning English, vocational
training and development of skills, which only the most skilled RCOs could
provide.
London RCOs had very high numbers of users from 30 different countries,
speaking 27 languages, although these may not be entirely accurate figures since
many RCOs did not have highly developed monitoring systems. The RCOs
worked both with asylum seekers and refugees, with only 30% of them working
mainly with settled communities.
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
RCOs said that demand had increased, which was partly due to asylum seekers
who had been dispersed to the North moving back to London. Overcrowding of
housing had led to higher levels of mental illness. RCOs were responding more to
crisis situations than previously and they had also experienced an increase in
requests for help from outside London.
cultural differences; orientation classes to understand the UK system; education;
and employment. But there is a difference between refugee integration in respect
of individuals, and as RCOs, suggesting that there is a need to strengthen the
RCOs in their integrative role.
The overriding message from RCOs was that they themselves felt marginal from
the process of integration. They observed gaps in relationships with other
agencies, yet they knew that their work with mainstream agencies was vital if
they were to make a difference.
About three-quarters of RCOs were engaged in representational activities, which
involved taking up issues with local authorities, social security offices and other
social agencies on behalf of individual users, but very few of them were involved
in policy research, public education or advocacy to highlight concerns with policy
makers. The main reason for this is that they have not been afforded real
opportunities to do so. A lack of resources is another contributory factor, as is
their very limited time.
There is a need for more investment in RCOs, not just money but training and
consultancy in organisational development, evaluation and accountability.
It was evident that mainstream organisations are not geared up for dealing with
refugee communities and need to adjust their behaviour, particularly in matters of
education and employment.
As with RCOs in the provinces, they were performing more of a ‘defensive’
function for their users. Only a few of them were able to offer high level services
to help users enter the labour market and even fewer were dealing with the
processes of refugees’ participation in public policy. RCOs perceive themselves as
having little influence on policies, both at local and national level.
Our research shows that RCOs tended to develop structures and institutions that
reinforced traditional identities in a new and frequently hostile environment. They
tend to develop in a variety of ways, sometimes not dissimilarly to those of
mainstream organisations2. For example, they tend to progress from a downward
type of accountability to upwards accountability. The research identified four
characteristic forms of:
(a) moving from amateur to stability
(b) founder syndrome
(c) harnessing community expertise
(d) identifying a market niche.
Many RCOs were starting from a low base. Their management systems were
generally poor, there was room for improvement in their human management
systems, and their monitoring and evaluation arrangements were weak. Much of
their activity was reactive. Less than half of the London sample had written plans,
and among those, one third of the plans had no mission statements. Almost none
had any way of systematically prioritising need. One or two organisations had
carried out surveys, but they lacked the skills to use the findings strategically. As a
consequence, staff and funders tended to be the driving force when it came to
deciding future work programmes. Few of the RCOs had quality assurance
systems or means of learning from their activities. These results suggest that there
is a need to help build their capacity.
There is a need for investment in civic infrastructure so that refugee interests are
taken into account when decisions are made about regeneration, planning and
service delivery. The Evelyn Oldfield Unit’s work with Renewal in West London
provides ample evidence of how to put refugee community members and their
organisations at the centre of integrative learning and thereby ‘transformative’
performance.
2 Consultancy as an Effective
Model for Managing Diversity
and Integration of Refugee and
Migrant Community
Organisations, Evelyn Oldfield
Unit, 2002
Recommendations
The current perspective on the refugee question is that it is a problem. One of the
ways forward is to cast the issue of refugees as part of the solution in creating a
vibrant multi-cultural society. Our study reveals that refugees and asylum seekers
have highly sophisticated political know-how and skills that have value in the
labour market.
Being given the opportunity to learn about engaging at different levels in the UK,
including at the policy level, must also be a pre-requisite for developing
transformative action. The following recommendations stem from this
perspective:
Home Office
• Increase its capacity to deal with refugee settlement and integration issues by
funding research into grassroots issues.
• Ensure that refugees are represented in the regeneration partnerships locally
and at other regional government policy and strategy levels.
• Create a special fund to enable new and emerging RCOs in the regions.
Conclusions
Our research shows that RCOs are meeting the basic needs of their users and
creating opportunities for them to feel part of the community, but there is little
activity to enable asylum seekers and refugees to participate in society. In order to
do this, RCOs need to develop stronger mutual links with mainstream
organisations so that effectively they are not marginalised by them.
Integration was considered by refugees to be a slow process and employment
was seen as the main obstacle. Routes to integration were seen as the provision
of English language classes; changing attitudes; recognition and respect for
10
• Include refugee matters in the strategy for funding opportunities from
government departments.
Refugee intermediaries
• Train a group of trainers, advisers and technical experts in matters of refugee
community organisational development.
• Target participation as a key result area by, for example, including credible
refugees on strategic committees as per the example of the Home Office’s
Integration Unit.
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
1
RCOs
• In the provinces, infiltrate the networks in partnership with intermediaries.
• London RCOs to help less well-developed RCOs in the regions by resourcing
the dissemination of established good practice models of relevant training and
development that have been proved successful.
Introduction
Host community
• Sensitise itself to the needs of refugees by putting refugees’ issues on the
agenda of all development agencies and including refugees in all levels of
government programmes.
his report documents the findings of joint research carried out during 2000
and 2001 by Charities Evaluation Services and the Evelyn Oldfield Unit. The
purpose of the research was to assess the contribution of refugee
community organisations (RCOs) to the settlement in the UK of the increased
numbers of asylum seekers and refugees who are affected by the dispersal policy
in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The findings test the commonly held
belief that the presence of community groups is central to the successful
settlement of refugees3.
T
3 Kelly, L, Joly, D, Refugees reception
and settlement in Britain. A report for
the Joseph Rowntree Foundation 1999
The main unit of analysis for the study is refugee community groups (RCOs).
Typically, these are formed by a small number of committed refugees. They often
start out from a private residence or a church hall before gradually acquiring
premises and funding. These groups tend to be predominantly nationality groups
and often begin their activities by providing mother tongue classes and
supplementary schools as part of helping refugees to maintain their cultural
identity. Their gatherings enable asylum seekers and refugees to come together,
share information about their country of origin and discuss issues of concern to
them.
The main research questions were:
• What is the capacity of RCOs to deliver services and other benefits, such as
reinforcement of linguistic and cultural identity, to their refugee
communities?
• To what extent do these services contribute to the process of settlement?
• How have these organisations been affected by the new legislation?
• To what extent have new refugee support services been developed in three
areas of England where asylum seekers are being dispersed?
• What are the organisational development needs of RCOs?
• What are the most appropriate support services for asylum seekers and
refugees in dispersed areas?
Demonstration outside the
offices of the Daily Mail
protesting against
coverage of asylum
seekers’ issues, July 2000
12
The research was carried out through in-depth interviews with members of 22
RCOs in London. The purpose of the interviews was to benchmark their activities.
See Appendix A for criteria and details of sample. In-depth interviews were also
conducted with members of local support services for dispersed asylum seekers
and refugees in three cities - Newcastle, Liverpool and Margate. See Appendix B
for interview schedules for existing RCOs.
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
The remainder of this chapter looks at the legislation affecting asylum seekers
and refugees in the UK today. Chapter Two studies refugee community groups
in three areas of the country (Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool and Margate).
Chapter Three documents the findings of interviews with RCOs in London and
Chapter Four draws out recommendations, including those for support
structures in the dispersal areas.
Table 1: Asylum Applications 1991-2000 6
Years
Applications
6 The Times, 26 May 2001
Decision backlog
Acceptance to stay
Removed from UK
1991
44,840
72,070
2,695
–
1992
24,605
49,110
16,430
1,345
1993
22,370
45,805
12,715
1,820
1994
32,830
55,255
4,485
2,220
1995
43,965
69,650
5,705
3,170
1996
29,640
57,405
7,295
4,845
• Tough new measures to combat clandestine immigration.
1997
32,500
51,795
7,100
7,160
• Improving the quality of advice available to applicants by regulating
immigration advisers.
1998
46,015
64,770
9,255
6,910
1999
71,160
101,475
10,280
7,605
2000
76,040
66,195
21,550
8,900
Legislation
The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, which formed the background to our
research, introduced fundamental changes to the asylum system concerning
treatment of asylum seekers and the process of claiming asylum. Key measures
in the Act included:
• Creating a single comprehensive right of appeal to speed up the system.
• Home Office led support arrangements, meeting essential living needs either
in kind or the provision of vouchers, with limited cash payments to reduce
the incentive for individuals to enter the country as economic migrants.
• Dispersal of destitute asylum seekers around the UK, allocating
accommodation on a no choice basis.
The Act removed local authorities'
responsibility for asylum seekers under the
National Assistance Act 1948 and the
homeless legislation. Instead, a new national
agency, the National Asylum Support Services
(NASS), was established on 1 April 2000 with
overall responsibility for asylum seekers and
for dispersal.
The new policy had two main aims. The first
was to deter asylum seekers from entering the
UK and to reduce the level of welfare benefits
paid to them, and the second was to relieve
the burden from London and the South East
by dispersing asylum seekers to other
metropolitan areas in England, Wales and
Scotland.
A report by the Audit
Commission pointed out that
there was no simple relationship
between the level of welfare
benefits and the number of
people seeking asylum
However, during 1999, the number of applications for asylum was considerably
higher than in the previous twelve months,4 and a report by the Audit
Commission pointed out that there was no simple relationship between the
level of welfare benefits and the number of people seeking asylum5. For
example, around 60% of applicants continued to claim asylum after entering
the country in 1999 even though they could not access welfare benefits.
4 Applications for asylum received in
the UK by the end of 1999 were
71,160, some 25,145 more than the
previous 12 months. Home Office
Statistical Bulletin 2000.
5 The Audit Commission, Another
Country, pages 9-10, 2000
Table 1 above shows that, of the total number of applications received in the ten
year period from 1991 to 2000, only 97,530 were given asylum or exceptional leave
to remain (24% of total applications).
Turning now to the second aim, namely dispersal of large numbers of asylum seekers
to areas outside London, this required complex negotiations between national
asylum support services and local authorities. Local authorities were given the task of
setting up local consortia composed of private and voluntary organisations to
implement government policy. At the centre of this complex relationship was the
need to find ways of identifying appropriate accommodation for asylum seekers, and
to ensure that other services, such as education and health, were also available.
When the Act became operational, local authorities were at different levels of
readiness to provide the required services for asylum seekers, and it took ten months
for the authorities to set up appropriate structures.
Between 1 April 2000 and end of March 2001, only 19,541 asylum seekers were
confirmed as dispersed, most of whom were dispersed to six regions. Within these
regions, the following cities received the most asylum seekers: Glasgow (2,396);
Liverpool (1,728); Newcastle (1,147); Birmingham (1,144); Bradford (1,033);
Nottingham (693); Plymouth (372); Hastings & St Leonards (151); Wrexham (21).
Tables 2 and 3 give details of dispersal numbers and nationalities of asylum seekers.
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Table 2: Numbers dispersed between April 2000 and March 2001 7
Region
Confirmed arrival
% of total
Yorkshire & Humberside
4,845
24.79
North West
4,581
23.44
North East
3,208
16.42
Scotland
2,396
12.26
West Midlands
2,124
10.87
East Midlands
1,140
5.83
South West
423
2.16
Greater London
405
2.07
South Central
219
1.12
East of England
139
0.71
Northern Ireland
40
0.20
Wales
21
0.11
19,541
100.0
Grand Total
The tables show that the dispersal system was not working properly. The number
of asylum seekers dispersed was very low. Originally, the government estimated
that there would be 70,000 bed spaces available for accommodation in the first
year. This number had to be reduced to 35,000.
7 IAP newsletter, May 2001
Recent developments indicated a breakdown in negotiations between the Home
Office and the regional consortia. There was much anxiety and mistrust on the
part of some consortia, which asserted that the low dispersal figures were not due
to low demand, but to the high level of disappearance of asylum seekers who
preferred not to leave London and the South East. They also suggested that
asylum seekers preferred cash and vouchers rather than accommodation.
The Audit Commission gave a gloomy picture of the dispersal situation:
9 The Audit
Commission,
Another Country,
p44, 2000
To date, the needs of asylum seekers have not been addressed in a systematic
way, operational pressures combined with scant information and inadequate
joint working have too often impeded a strategic approach. Despite some
examples of innovative good practices, many barriers to services and
inequities in service provision persist. 9
In October 2000, the government launched a new strategy for integrating
refugees in the United Kingdom. It envisaged that the strategy would evolve over
time, but that the National Refugee Integration Forum would initially take it
forward. The forum was chaired by the Minister of State and involved other
government departments at high levels, the voluntary sector, regional consortia
and other interested parties. The aims of the integration strategy were:
• To include refugees as equal members of society
Table 3: Top 20 Nationalities Dispersed April 2000 to March 2001 8
Nationality
Total
Iraq
5,097
Iran
3,503
Afghanistan
1,900
8 ibid
• To help them develop their potential and contribute to the cultural and
economic life of the country
• To set out a clear framework to support the integration process across the
United Kingdom
• To facilitate access to the support necessary for the integration of refugees
nationally and regionally.
Czech Republic
897
Somalia
592
Turkey
587
Zimbabwe
511
DR Congo
499
Albania
477
Kosovo
444
Pakistan
384
Sri Lanka
335
Yugoslavia
299
Algeria
283
Poland
263
Angola
249
Romania
218
Palestine
174
It will be recalled that there were two main aspects to the 1999 legislation:
vouchers and dispersal. Under the new proposals, vouchers would be abolished,
and the dispersal system would be radically overhauled. Reforms of the dispersal
system would include:
Eritrea
167
• Dispersal through induction centres, allowing greater control and support
16
Home Secretary David
Blunkett noted that there
was ‘a clamour that
something must be done’
10 Blunkett, D Give me
time to get asylum
right. Observer, 9
September 2001
The strategy intended to meet the needs of refugees in terms
of accommodation, education and training, employment,
access to health care and community development. To this
end, the government would provide three funding streams to
help resource refugee organisations.
Nevertheless, during the research period, it became clear that
certain aspects of the strategy were in disarray and, by
September 2001, Home Secretary David Blunkett noted that
there was ‘a clamour that something must be done’.10 Just
over a month later, on 29th October 2001, he made a
statement to the House of Commons that there would be a
‘fundamental reform of our asylum and immigration policy’. This would entail a
White Paper and new legislation, modifying the Immigration and Asylum Act
1999.
17
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• Emphasis on dispersing to areas that meet asylum seekers’ needs and to
‘language clusters’
government, mainstream voluntary organisations, refugee umbrella organisations
and RCOs are the main institutions and agencies. The private sector tends only to
become involved in specific areas, such as housing or employment.
• An improved regional structure for NASS
• Improved contact with asylum seekers to facilitate better integration and
services
12 UNHCR, Broad Survey on the
integration of resettled
refugees, UNHCR Resettlement
section, division of international
protection. Geneva, 7 May
1997
• Better co-ordination between local authorities and better arrangements with
voluntary organisations
A White Paper ‘Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with diversity in modern
Britain’ was published on 7 February 2002 setting out more detailed proposals.
The main ones were:
• A radical new system of induction, accommodation, reporting and removal
centres to secure a seamless asylum process which monitors and provides the
appropriate measures at every stage of the process
• A resettlement programme, operated with the UNHCR, to establish legal
gateways for certified refugees in need of protection, avoiding dangerous and
highly visible illegal methods of entry
• The Application Registration Card launched last week - that will
prevent fraud and provide more
secure evidence of identity and
nationality
13 Field, Simon, Resettling
refugees: the lessons of
research, Home Office research
study 87, HMSO, London, 1985
How should such agencies work? The United Nations High Commission for
Refugees identified the most important factors for successful refugee integration. 12
The factors were: employment, income, language, support in developing links with
own community members, support of and unification with family members, good
settlement services, good physical and mental health and access to appropriate
health care, access to education and appropriate housing. Emotional factors that
mitigate against successful settlement are continued separation from the family,
reversal of family roles, mental illness caused by factors leading to the individual
becoming a refugee, depression and mental health problems caused by their new
situation.
Research shows that asylum seekers and refugees tend to prefer to live in areas
where there are others from the same background, and that the presence of a
strong community group can help to reduce adjustment problems.13
The following chapters address the question ‘to what extent do RCOs contribute to
the mission of supporting and assisting asylum seekers and refugees to settle in the
UK?’
Research shows that asylum seekers
and refugees tend to prefer to live in
areas where there are others from the
same background, and that the
presence of a strong community group
can help to reduce adjustment
problems.
• Tough measures to prevent delay
and obstruction in the appeals
system and unmeritorious
applications for judicial reviews including making the Immigration
Appeals Tribunal a Superior Court
of Record; setting closure dates on
appeals to stop multiple
adjournments; tighter time limits
on appeals; and measures to ensure the merits test for public funding of legal
representation is being applied properly
• A 50% expansion in the number of appeals that can be heard every month
• An increase of 40% in secure removals centre places to 4,000 by Spring 2003
• Refugee integration - cutting out bureaucratic delay with simplified integration
procedures
• A new Immigration Hotline - through which members of the public can report
immigration offences.
As the Refugee Council has pointed out, the new proposals mean the fourth
radical shake-up of the asylum system in less than a decade11. What tends to get
less attention is the process of implementation. Delivery is the test of any policy,
and implementation is likely to be disturbed by constant changes in policy.
This study centres on RCOs, as one of a number of other agents with some
responsibility for delivering integration.
What are the other main agents of delivery? Central government, local
18
11 The Refugee Council’s web site considers
these matters in depth.
See http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk
Roma refugees at a church
hall gathering, Kentish Town,
London, 1998
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
2
The situation in
the regions
T
his chapter studies refugee community groups in three areas of the country
(Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool, and Margate). The main question to be
answered was:
What is the capacity of refugee community groups to deliver services and other
benefits, such as reinforcement of linguistic and cultural identity, to their
refugee communities?
This question yielded a number of supplementary questions, including:
1. How many RCOs now exist in the three areas?
2. In what ways have they changed and can we map their growth patterns and
ups and downs (e.g. how long does it take to develop a refugee community
organisation, what determines their growth patterns)?
3. What drives and what constrains the organisational development of RCOs?
4. What forms of refugee support initiatives are there?
5. How do these organisations find appropriate support for their development?
6. On the premise that community building can only occur when there are
sufficient numbers, what is seen as a sufficient number of refugees for the
development of a refugee community organisation?
7. To what extent do the structure, resources and capacity of RCOs reflect the
changing patterns of immigration?
8. How have the changes in legislation affected the capacity of RCOs to plan
ahead, develop their services, think strategically and pursue a proactive approach
to their work?
Rwandan refugee living in
temporary accommodation,
Liverpool, 2000
9. How have the changes in legislation affected the services they are able to offer
to their communities? What are the variations in service delivery over time that
may be caused by the changes in legislation? Have the needs of asylum seekers
impinged on RCOs’ abilities to focus on settlement issues?
10. How have the changes in legislation affected their user groups? What services
are difficult to access?
20
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Choice of study areas
A new system
Three different geographical areas were chosen: Newcastle in the North East with
low Black and Ethnic Minority settled communities, Liverpool in the North West
with relatively high Black and Ethnic Minority settled communities, and Margate
in the South East which is not an area into which asylum seekers and refugees are
dispersed but into which they arrive.
The research was conducted early in the life of the new legislation. In all three
areas, the legislation had created enormous changes. Let us take the North East
region as an example. Until the beginning of 1998, some 150 refugees arrived
each year. The North of England Refugee Service had successful working
partnerships with regional and local statutory and voluntary organisations,
including the seven RCOs in the region. During 1998, the numbers arriving in the
region increased through the activities of the Refugee Arrivals Project, and
increased again during 1999 through the interim dispersal system. Since then,
numbers have increased by a factor of 16, with 3,208 arriving in the region
during the last year. Liverpool has experienced similar increases.
Newcastle upon Tyne, with a population of 275,000 people, is the regional capital
of the North East of England, and sits at the heart of the conurbation of Tyne and
Wear, with its five boroughs and 1.3 million people.14 The area was once a
vibrant industrial centre, based on coal mining and shipbuilding. Such industry has
now disappeared, and, despite a Tyneside revival based on inward investment,
technology, and a successful entertainment industry, unemployment is twice the
national average. Poverty indicators are above the national average and the
region has received considerable funding from the European Commission and
British government to combat social exclusion. A notable characteristic of the area
is its stable population with low rates of immigration and emigration. With 95%
of the population classed as ‘white’, minorities are almost entirely of Asian origin,
particularly from the Southern Asian countries of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh,
and from China.15
Liverpool lies at the centre of the Merseyside conurbation, which is composed of
four additional boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Wirral, and Sefton. The wealth of
Liverpool was based on slavery and shipping, based on the comparative
advantage of being a west-facing port for trade with the Americas. In the second
part of the 20th century, Liverpool experienced a catastrophic economic decline,
resulting not only in very high rates of unemployment and poverty, but also by
the 1980s in social disorder, riots, and the near collapse of public administration.
Problems appeared so intractable at one point that the Secretary of State for the
Environment contemplated grassing over the city and decanting the population.
Since then, the city has made something of a recovery, and boasts some of the
best examples of urban regeneration in the UK. Nevertheless, chronic poverty and
unemployment remain. Unlike Newcastle, there is a long-standing black
community which, despite centuries of living in the city, has yet to experience
anything like full integration.
Margate is a seaside town in Kent, the garden of England. Once an important
market town and port, it took advantage of the fashion in sea bathing, which
took hold in England from 1750, to become a thriving seaside resort. In the
succeeding two centuries, the attractions of the Pavilion, Winter Gardens, and
beautiful beaches acted as a magnet to Londoners who visited for day trips as
well as more extended stays in the traditional holiday fortnight in the last week of
July and first week in August. In the second half of the 20th century, however, the
lure of Spain and other exotic destinations meant that the bottom fell out of the
British seaside tourism industry. Margate was not immune, and went into sharp
decline. There has been no other industry to replace it, but the shock has been
softened by the growth in service industries in the South East, so that chronic
unemployment is not a feature of the town in the way that it is in the two
northern conurbations in the study.
Although it is not possible on the basis of three geographical studies to draw
conclusions about the whole of England, they offer good insights into the kinds of
issues that arise in the dispersal system.
22
14 Census, 1991
To cope with the increased numbers, new arrangements were needed. These
included new contracting arrangements (e.g. between local authorities and NASS
to deliver housing), a response to new demands for statutory services among a
new group of clients, and adjustments by the voluntary and community
organisations to include new residents within their activities and support
framework. It was clear from our research that the organisations concerned were
experiencing a steep learning curve.
15 Key Facts about Newcastle,
http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/
Arriving to a grey outlook
The speed with which legislative changes have had to be implemented has meant
that asylum seekers were settled into localities where few agencies had
experience of hosting them and where networks of support are absent or underdeveloped. It is not surprising, therefore, that stress and organisational difficulties
have resulted. In Liverpool, for example, everyone interviewed mentioned
‘confusion’, ‘lack of co-ordination’, ‘lack of monitoring of services’, and ‘poor
information’. Similar institutional disturbance was reported in the other two areas.
Abuse of refugees was said
to be a common problem in
all three areas, with
Margate standing out as
having a particularly serious
problem in this respect.
As well as asylum seekers being pitched into a situation
where agencies were unprepared, life was made harder for
asylum seekers because they tended to be housed in hardto-let housing in the poorest areas. This situation was
particularly true of the two Northern areas. In Liverpool,
there is a high prevalence of asylum seekers in Granby ward
in Toxteth, described by one refugee as ‘a town destroyed by
war’; and in Newcastle, in the West End of the City, which
rates as one of the largest areas of inner city deprivation in
the UK.
This somewhat harsh reception was made worse by the fact
that people in the three areas had little previous experience
of multi-culturalism in general, and of refugee issues in particular. In all areas,
overt racism has been a significant problem. A search of the press in the North
East revealed a number of reports of xenophobic attacks, a BBC television
programme showed local people physically attacking refugees in Liverpool, and
the national press have reported serious public dissatisfaction with the high
numbers of refugees being put into bed and breakfast in Kent in readiness for
dispersal. Abuse of refugees was said to be a common problem in all three areas,
with Margate standing out as having a particularly serious problem in this respect.
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
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Given these adverse factors, asylum seekers tended to be pre-occupied with
getting by as best they could. The settlement context was therefore very different
from London and had an effect on the capacity for self-organisation and support
for the integration process by refugee organisations themselves. The
preconditions for successful settlement and integration were therefore
unfavourable. As one indicator for this, most interviewees said that many asylum
seekers left the regions as soon as they could and drifted back to London in
search of work and a more hospitable reception from the host community.
Although we have no figures to support that this ‘trickle back factor’ was
occurring, we were told time and time again that this was happening in Liverpool
and Newcastle, though not in Margate where the prospects for work were
greater.
• Forming social groups for interaction, organising workshops, film shows,
seminars, talks and dramatic and musical events so that the host community
could get to know more about refugees and their backgrounds. Social events,
like barbecues, are very important – where people can eat and drink and party
together.
• Through school visits by refugees, and events organised so that children get to
know people who are refugees.
• Through representing themselves at meetings with community leaders,
organisations and local authority committees.
• Through talking to the media about their personal stories, achievements, and
contributions.
The fourth was to provide expert and regional knowledge to inform policy
development. There were three main facets to this:
The contribution of community groups
• Refugees are the voice of experience. If these voices are heard they will identify
the needs, tell of the problems created by inappropriately designed policies and
will offer solutions.
Despite this unfavourable climate, there was evidence that refugee community
groups were making a significant contribution to the settlement of refugees.
There were four distinctive contributions that refugee community groups were
able to make.
• Refugees themselves have a focal role to play in defining what inclusion
strategies are appropriate for them in relation to their self-identified needs.
The first was to provide cultural and emotional support and opportunities for
developing identity. There were three main ways in which refugee community
groups were able to do this:
• Refugees provide a vital source of emotional, cultural, social, educational and
advisory support through establishing their own community organisations
where people who share the refugee experience and culture can meet and
support each other.
• Within a very short period of time people feel stronger if they have the
opportunity to meet in this way, support each other and celebrate their
cultures.
• Such community groups and organisations can also provide points of contact
with host community groups and afford refugees the chance to confer about
local cultural rules, and give the host community a chance to understand the
ways of different cultures.
The second means was to deliver practical assistance. There were a wide range of
services on offer that meant that refugee community groups were often a first
port of call for meeting basic needs. There were two distinctive contributions
here:
• Refugees can compare each others’ experiences in integration across Europe to
identify examples of good practice from other national or regional contexts.
Refugees are the voice of
experience. If these voices
are heard they will identify
the needs, tell of the
problems created by
inappropriately designed
policies and will offer
solutions.
In part, the situation reflects the fragility of all community groups and this
assessment could equally apply to the average mainstream residents’ association,
community co-operative, or self-help group. However, in the case of asylum
seekers and refugees, the problem was made worse because they tended to be in
a weak position in accessing factors supportive to successful organisation
development. These include: personal resources, money, energy, contentment,
surplus resources, wide contacts, access to networks, knowledge of the system,
management support and good living space among others.
• Refugees provide interpretation, communication and cultural mediation across
information gaps and problems in access to and delivery of services.
The third involved raising awareness and understanding and promoting positive
attitudes in the community. This showed itself in a number of ways:
24
Limitations of community groups
Despite evident achievements, there was an
overwhelming sense of fragility about the RCOs found in
each locality. They faced a wide range of demands with
very limited resources. They commonly had weak
structures, little money, sometimes with no meeting
place, limited knowledge of the British system, and
dependency on a small number of enthusiastic individuals whose dedication led
them to work very hard, bringing them, in some cases, close to ‘burn out’.
• Refugees know what constitutes essential advice and the orientation problems
that the particular configuration of the host system presents to people from
their own countries.
• Having direct contact with and participation in the community – getting to
know people personally and as individuals, breaking down barriers through
‘meeting places’.
We were unable, in the context of the current study, to
provide detailed evidence of impacts on each of these
roles. However, there was universal agreement among
those interviewed that problems of capacity impaired the
ability of RCOs to perform these roles.
16 Narayan, D, Voices of the Poor: Can
anyone hear us? Oxford University Press for
the World Bank, New York, 2000
The consequence was that refugee community groups were able to perform what
Narayan (2000) has called a ‘defensive’ function in enabling asylum seekers to
contend with the situation that they found themselves in.16 What they were not
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able to do was to perform a ‘transformative’ function which, Narayan suggests, is
vital if refugee communities are to effect the changes in local power necessary for
true integration. Taking this theme further, Knight, Chigudu, and Tandon (2002)
have developed a model of a good society based on three interlocking forces. A
good society occurs when people are able to fulfil their requirements for basic
needs, association, and participation.17 Although refugee community groups are
able to meet many of the basic needs of refugees, and provide opportunities for
them to meet together, they have not so far, in Liverpool, Newcastle, and
Margate, enabled refugees to participate in the political processes that would
speed their integration and create a rich multi-cultural society in these provincial
areas.
voluntary sector, with its sensitivity to issues of diversity, sometimes
inappropriately conflated the notion of asylum seekers with race and equal
opportunities issues – a view that told only a small part of the story.
17 Knight, B, Chigudu, H, and Tandon, R,
Reviving Democracy, Earthscan, London,
2002
In part, the reason is that RCOs are too small. In addition, they are too few in
number to have much impact. There were only eight refugee community groups
in Newcastle, nine in Liverpool, and one in Margate that involved refugees but
was set up by the host community. Moreover, we found that some communities
were too small to sustain a community group, and were isolated and fragmented
as a result. It is clear that a critical mass is necessary to form and develop an RCO.
It was impossible, however, from the limited data available to estimate the
numerical ‘tipping point’ for an RCO to come into existence.
At the same time, there were dedicated refugee agencies that seemed to offer
RCOs support and development. In Liverpool, Refugee Action was active; in the
North East, there was the Northern Refugee Service, an organisation that was
developing an independent refugee forum; and in Margate there was the Kent
Refugee Support Network that gave support to RCOs. Such support services were
vital to the development of RCOs, particularly in offering training and technical
assistance and helping RCOs adjust to the British system.
Conclusion
The overall conclusion from the three provincial areas is a sense of struggle.
Refugees are making valiant efforts to assist asylum seekers, sometimes at huge
cost to themselves, but without much in the way of support from the system,
which is itself struggling to cope. The mainstream agencies are more or less
unaware of the issue of asylum seekers, and so have yet to adjust their operations
to take their needs into account.
Organisation development matters
Refugee community groups in the three provincial areas varied. Some were old,
having reflected earlier migration patterns, and had transformed themselves into
cultural organisations or fallen into disuse so that they had become largely
moribund. The new and recent arrivals had
in many cases led to the reactivation of old
groups, giving them a new lease of life
while challenging them to the
organisational limits.
Somali women at a conference
organised by the Evelyn Oldfield Unit
Even the voluntary sector, with its
sensitivity to issues of diversity,
sometimes inappropriately
conflated the notion of asylum
seekers with race and equal
opportunities issues – a view that
told only a small part of the story.
In those cases where there was no host
community to welcome refugees, new
arrivals had taken some time to form
groups. In part, this was because during
the period of waiting for the asylum
decision, people had too little energy to
engage in collective planning for a future
that might not happen. When they did
begin the process of forming groups, they
were more interested in meeting with one another than in adopting a formal
constitution. They were commonly content to work as an informal and
unincorporated association. It was when they needed money and resources that
the exigencies of formal registration became necessary. At this point, they
generally needed external assistance because they were usually unaware of the
demands of charity law.
Support services for refugee community groups, while present in all three areas,
were under-developed. For many established agencies the refugee sector was
invisible. As part of this research, a survey of 17 local development agencies in the
statutory, voluntary, and private sectors was undertaken. None of these agencies
referred to the notion of refugees in their published reports or literature. Even the
26
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3
Refugee community
organisations in
London
aving looked at the situation in the three areas of England, our research
turned to the role of RCOs in the settlement of refugees in London. During
the late 1970s and early 1980s, London witnessed the emergence of RCOs
as a response to refugee migrations to the UK. At that point in time, charitable
trusts and local authorities (which then had statutory responsibility to assist with the
settlement of refugees) had limited knowledge about the cultural background of
refugees and their organisations, which made it difficult for RCOs to access
financial resources.
H
Unaccompanied Eritrean
children being taught
English at Heythrop College
in London, 1992
We estimate that today there are between 400 and 500 RCOs in London alone and
their structures and networks have become more complex and sophisticated over
time. In the early days, there were only nationality specific groups, but during the
late 1980s, ‘refugee consortia’ were established followed by ‘generic refugee
organisations’ and ‘refugee forums’ in the early 1990s, leading to the
encouragement of ‘borough based networks’ in the late 1990s. These
developments, particularly those involving strategic networks, were stimulated by
the activity of funders and the larger refugee organisations, such as the Refugee
Council. For instance, in the mid 1980s, the Refugee Council’s community
development team provided infrastructural support for new and emerging
organisations, and in the late 1980s, the organisation placed trainees in RCOs and
gave them equipment. These were some of the strategies that helped to build the
capacity of the organisations to deliver their services. In the mid 1980s, City
Parochial Foundation (CPF) and Trust for London (TfL) were pioneers for providing
money to London-based RCOs and later provided support in kind by way of free
consultants to help in their organisational development. In the mid 1990s, the big
funders, notably CPF, London Boroughs Grants and Thames Telethon, together
with the Refugee Council, formed a consortium which established the Evelyn
Oldfield Unit to provide technical support for the further development of RCOs.
This was designed to fill a gap in management and organisational support. TfL
established the Resource Unit for Supplementary and Mother Tongue Schools.
18 Gameledin-Ashami, M, Cooper, L,
A Benchmark for Refugee
Community Organisations in
London, Evelyn Oldfield Unit and
Charities Evaluation Services, 2001
By way of creating a benchmark for RCOs, our research looked in-depth at 22
London-based RCOs in order to understand their growth patterns and to assess to
what extent they support the process of settlement.18 Appendix C gives details of
each RCO in the sample on their legal status, date of establishment and registration
as a charity, the number of males and females on committees, how board members
are elected and the number of management meetings they have each year. Eight of
the RCOs were established between 1980 and 1986, and 14 between 1987 and
1995, which was a time when the major legislation was introduced.
We originally planned to interview 30 RCOs in great depth, but only managed 22.
The eight missing cases had either closed down, were too overworked, or were
experiencing difficulties. Our sample cannot be thought of as truly representative,
28
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because, with an interview failure rate of 25%, there is bound to be non-response
bias. However, many of the issues raised by the results from the 22 RCOs are
germane to the RCO sector.
From the findings, two very important differences between London and the
provinces stand out. The first is the level of membership and volunteering. According
to what London RCOs said, membership and volunteering was very high and
probably higher than in most mainstream small voluntary bodies. The average
membership was 1,048 and was said to have increased from an average of 835 in
1995. Two extreme cases reported a membership of 4,000 and 12,000 respectively.
Similarly, organisations reported a high prevalence of volunteers. The organisations
had an average of 12 and a maximum of 40 volunteers. Indeed, many other RCOs
were said to be run solely by volunteers, though in our sample, this was not the case
where each RCO employed an average of three full-time and two part-time staff.
20 ibid. In 1999, the income
from local authorities and
LBGU for mainstream
organisations had
dropped 33% in ten
years. Sixty per cent of
the sample surveyed
received income from
Trusts and only 9%
received Lottery funding.
The second factor distinguishing between London and the provinces was finance.
Unlike RCOs in the provinces, which had very little money, the London sample had
significant funding. Since this finding conditions others, we will deal with the matter
of money first.
These figures suggest that RCOs in the capital are more robust than their provincial
counterparts, although a relatively high proportion of volunteers also suggests that
paid work may not be as well resourced as it might be. Funding sources are given in
Table 4 below.
Table 4: Funding sources for RCOs
Funding source
Number of RCOs
receiving funding
% of total number of RCOs
Local Authority/LBG
21
95
Trust and Foundation
15
68
Lottery and Millennium
15
68
Health Authority
5
23
Voluntary organisations
5
23
Refugee Council
5
23
Europe
4
18
Other*
4
18
TEC
2
9
Own income
2
9
Legal Service Commission
1
5
Private
1
5
Such funding enabled RCOs to rent offices in a way that would have been
unthinkable for their provincial counterparts. An average of £13,006 was paid for
rent per year for an average of four to five rooms. The minimum cost was £1,200,
and the maximum £39,277. More than three-quarters of the organisations had
access to private interview rooms for work with clients, two-thirds (68%) had
access to training rooms and nearly half (46%) had access to community halls.
RCO activities
The scale of funding among London RCOs enabled a scale of activity greatly in
excess of that found in the provinces. Systematic analysis of RCO activities found
that service delivery dominated. The rationale for this was, according to RCOs
interviewed, that services would assist new arrivals to adapt to their new
environment. Advice work was the dominant form of service delivery.
Organisations’ resources
The average amount of funding an RCO received in our sample was £121,410 per
year, most of which is geared to project funding rather than core funding (four
organisations gave no details of funding). The least amount that an organisation
received per year was £30,000, and the largest amount £345,064. 19
Contrary to expectation, the majority of RCOs (95%) received funding from their
local authority – a higher proportion than the voluntary organisations researched
in the above-mentioned survey. Unlike other mainstream organisations, there was
no government funding, but a higher proportion received funding from trusts and
foundations and the Lottery/Millennium than other mainstream voluntary
agencies in London.20 A regression analysis of the funding details shows that age
of organisation predicted income: the older the RCO, the greater the annual
funding.
There appeared to be three main types of advice. The first type of advice was
how to access the UK welfare system. This might involve short interventions of
advice or long time-consuming casework interventions, with follow-up and
referral to other agencies. In this role, RCOs helped beneficiaries to make claims
and defend their interests.
19 In a survey of 106 local London
voluntary organisations carried out
by L Cooper in 1999, 53% of them
had an income of up to £100,000
and 47% received between
£100,000 and £3 million.
21 The Asylum &
Immigration Act 1999
introduced new
regulations in respect of
providing immigration
advice, including the
Community Legal Service
Quality Mark launched in
2000
22 Evelyn Oldfield Unit
….op.cit
To do this effectively, staff required considerable training. The 1999 legislation
was having a significant impact upon RCOs because of its demands for
organisations to implement the new ‘Quality Mark’21 before they could offer
professional advice. Most interviewees were extremely worried about developing
the capacity to do so within the stipulated time period. Although many people
who set up RCOs had acquired some experience of social administration in the
UK, the knowledge base was normally limited to individual personal encounters
with the system rather than practical work experience within statutory or
voluntary organisations. A minority of the founders and organisers of RCOs had
been bureaucrats, political activists or students in their own countries. They often
had organisational skills, gained through student, trade union activity or as leaders
of national liberation movements. These individuals were often mature and
dynamic with a strong vision and a particular world view of their role in their
communities, as well as of their members’ role as extensions of larger
communities which they left behind. At the same time, they had little direct
experience of the complexities of the rules and regulations of British social
administration.22
Table 5 displays the distribution of advice focusing on access to welfare in the
sample of 22 RCOs.
* Other includes Catering Training, Capital Radio, Workers Education Association and RSA.
30
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ran mother tongue schools and (ii) there were indications that some RCOs were
providing support on more detailed settlement issues. These findings were
reflected in the setting up of provision for young and elderly people and the
provision of counselling for those with mental health problems.
Table 5: Advice and information in accessing statutory and local services
Type of activity
Number
of RCOs
%
of RCOs
Number with
records for
number helped
Average no.* of
users helped per
year per RCO
Housing
22
100
15
686
Welfare
22
100
13
1071
Legal / immigration
22
100
11
911
Health
19
86.4
10
1160
Education
18
81.8
8
145
Vocational
12
54.5
6
235
Court
10
45.5
4
245
9
40.9
3
225
Mental health
*In Table 5 above, the average
number of users helped per year
per RCO is calculated only from
those that collect monitoring
statistics. It is calculated by
taking the total number of users
helped and dividing that figure
by the number of RCOs that
have records.
All of the 22 RCOs provided advice and information on housing, welfare and
immigration. Although a slightly lower number (19) provided advice and
information on health, the average number of users helped per year in this area
was the highest. The number of RCOs providing advice and information on
mental health was noticeably high, suggesting marked levels of stress experienced
by refugees.
The third type of advice, more akin to the first, helped with access to the labour
market. It was only the most skilled RCOs that could engage with this because it
needed considerable resources, much contact with host agencies, partnerships
with educational and training agencies, and high skills in reporting and managing
money. Results are displayed in Table 7.
Table 7: Help with access to employment
Type of activity
Help with English
Number
of RCOs
%
of RCOs
10
61
Vocational training
7
32
7
114
Development of skills
6
27
6
87
The table shows that over half of the sample provided help with learning English,
either directly or in collaboration with local colleges, to help their users settle into
the host community. Much smaller numbers of RCOs provided vocational training
or skills training to help users enter the labour market. Indeed, on further analysis,
the vocational training extended no further than training on information
technology, help with basic computer skills, training in nursing care or career
guidance; and skills development focussed on interview skills, literacy classes,
sewing classes and an accredited course on catering. Some of these were
provided as NVQ level 1 and 2 accredited courses.
Number with
records for
number helped
Average no. of
users helped per
year per RCO
Mother tongue classes
12
55
9
233
Supplementary classes
11
50
6
57
Youth work
10
45
7
505
Cultural identity
8
36
1
500
Lunch clubs
8
36
5
1101
Counselling
6
27
2
362
Positive images
5
22
0
-
In the above table, ‘Supplementary classes’ is defined as ‘activities designed to
give additional help with school work for children and young adults’. There were
two important findings about supplementary classes: (i) over half of the sample
32
Average no. of
users helped per
year per RCO
55
Table 6: Cultural and confidence-building activities
Number
of RCOs
Number with
records for
number helped
12
The second type of advice was more informal and focused on culture and
confidence building. Commonly, this aimed to develop and maintain the cultural
identity of users, promote positive attitudes and create stability in communities.
Some of this work also began to tackle more intricate aspects of settlement, and
how to deal with aspects of British culture. Taken collectively, these activities
contributed to community development.
Type of activity
%
of RCOs
We compared the income of RCOs that provide vocational training with other
organisations in the sample and found that training providers tended to be larger
organisations with an average income £57,000 per annum higher than those not
providing vocational training. Two of the successful RCOs that provided
vocational training demonstrated that they had identified a market niche
following detailed research.
Users of RCOs
23 Gameledin - Ashami, M, Cooper, L.
op.cit.
We found that RCOs had very high numbers of users from 30 different countries,
speaking 27 languages (probably higher numbers than most small mainstream
voluntary agencies) with an average of 3,469 per year, from a minimum of 400
and a maximum of 15,000 users.23 However, these figures need to be treated
with caution, since we were unable to validate them. During interviews, it became
clear that RCOs did not have highly developed systems of monitoring.
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RCOs worked both with asylum seekers and refugees. Asylum seekers dominated
the user groups. Only 30% of the organisations worked ‘mainly’ with settled
communities.
Organisation development
We saw earlier that refugee community groups are typically formed by a small
number of committed refugees who often operate from a private residence or a
church hall before gradually acquiring premises and funding. These groups tend
to be predominantly nationality groups and often begin their activities by
providing mother tongue classes and supplementary schools as part of helping
refugees to maintain their cultural identity. Their gatherings enable asylum seekers
and refugees to come together, share information about their country of origin
and discuss issues of concern to them.
RCOs said that demand had increased. The most dominant feeling was that the
overcrowding of housing, with families welcoming other members of their
community to live with them to avoid moving out of London, had led to higher
levels of mental illness. They also considered that they were responding to crisis
situations more often than previously. Part of the increased demand was due to
asylum seekers who had been dispersed to the North moving back to London. As
we saw in Chapter Two, poor quality accommodation, lack of community support
and racial harassment were said to be significant problems experienced by
refugees when they are dispersed and the problems are often too great, causing
them to return to London. This was a big issue for London-based RCOs, since
they said that it increased their workload considerably.
How do they develop? And what factors help or hinder their development?
Our research suggested that RCOs had a tendency to develop structures and
institutions that reinforced traditional identities in a new and frequently hostile
environment. The old cultural forms, which regulated social relationships in their
countries of origin, such as kinship, conflict resolution, weddings and funerals,
continued. As members began to adapt to the new situation, activities tended to
assume new meanings and functions. RCOs develop in a variety of ways,
sometimes not dissimilarly to those of mainstream organisations. As an illustration
of this, let us take the matter of accountability. This is an area where RCOs tend
to progress from one form of accountability to another.
RCOs also stated that they had experienced an increase in requests for help from
outside London but their lack of monitoring made it difficult to identify exactly
what changes had occurred. In some cases, London-based organisations had
developed contacts with groups in other regions and felt pressured to offer more
support from a distance.
Other activities
About three-quarters (73%) were involved in
representational activities. This involved taking up issues
with local authorities, social security offices and other
social agencies on behalf of individual users. At the same
time, very few RCOs (three of 22) were involved in policy
research, public education or advocacy to highlight
concerns with policy makers. RCOs concentrated on
coping with day-to-day matters, and there was little time
or resource to engage in public debate. Mainstream
institutions need to think about how they engage with
marginalised groups.
Few RCOs are able to offer
higher level services to
help users enter the labour
market and even fewer are
dealing with the processes
of refugees’ participation
in public policy.
Our benchmark exercise seems to support the assertion in
Chapter Two that RCOs are performing a ‘defensive’
function for their users by meeting their basic need to
access advice on housing, welfare, immigration, health and education. Not only
are RCOs performing these functions with great commitment but they are also
meeting the basic needs of very large numbers. Few of them are able to offer
higher level services to help users enter the labour market and even fewer are
dealing with the processes of refugees’ participation in public policy. There is a
strong tendency to leave these aspects of their work to the larger organisations.
Indeed, these groups perceive themselves as having little influence on policies,
both at local and national level, and this view has been confirmed by other
research.24
34
Accountability in voluntary organisations may be divided into two types: upwards
and downwards. Upward accountability tends to be directed through trustees to
regulatory authorities, such as the Charity Commission, and to funding agencies.
Downward accountability tends to be directed towards members and users. The
dynamics of the two types may pull an organisation in opposite directions. Until
recently, RCOs, more than any other type of voluntary organisation, have tended
to rely more on the downward type of accountability since their leitmotif has
tended to be solidarity with compatriots, rather than compliance with an
externally-imposed UK-centric system. This has sometimes caused difficulty with
those funders who fail to understand how RCOs operate. This is not because of a
lack of checks and balances within the organisation, but because the
accountability structures are different. These checks and balances rest on
culturally-organised processes based on negotiation of community attachment
and identity and on peer validation of process that enhance participation and
accountability.
The research uncovered a changing balance. A number of interviews with people
from RCOs suggested that they were beginning to take upward accountability
more seriously. As one indicator of this, they were now spending a great deal
more of their time completing accountability reports.
In organisation development, there appeared to be four characteristic forms of
development. We have named the types:
(a) moving from amateur to stability
24 This finding was also reported by
Ese-Feka, R, in Community based
initiatives with the capacity to assist
integration of refugees and asylum
seekers in London, Home Office,
2001
(b) founder syndrome
(c) harnessing community expertise
(d) identifying a market niche.
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We will now give a case study of each type. Each of the four studies shows how
important it is (a) to develop a clear vision and strategic plan of what the
organisation can achieve, (b) invest in the training and support of all staff and
volunteers rather than only the founder or co-ordinator, (c) harness the expertise
of local community members, and (d) identify a market niche and base decisions
on research findings.
Casestudy
Moving from amateur to stability
This organisation started in 1991 with no funding. During the first year,
the small group of refugees who were working together used their own
money to support their activities. Users were encouraged to become
members and their small contributions were used for rent and telephone.
After one year, funding was received from the British Refugee Council and
two trusts. This attracted a new group of volunteers who were able to deal
with large numbers of immigration cases.
As time went by, they started to address new problems associated with
settlement, such as health, social and welfare issues. In 1993, the
organisation started to campaign against the asylum bill. In 1994, funding
was received for a caseworker and an HIV project was developed. The
work became regular and the organisation began to stabilise with around
£30,000 to £40,000 per annum. However, by 1997, their vision had gone,
the management committee went through a crisis and volunteers
disappeared because they no longer found the work appealing. The small
number of people who remained with the organisation were not clear
what they were trying to achieve and they were prepared to close the
organisation down.
At the end of 1997, a new management committee was elected and they
decided to put quality time into reviewing the organisation in order to
determine what the real problems were. Although some progress occurred
at that time, with a new office that briefly motivated people, it was not
until 1999 when the Department of Health commissioned a capacity
building programme for organisations working on HIV issues that things
began to change. It was during this time that the management committee,
co-ordinator and staff were able to work on developing a clear strategy for
sustainability. For the staff team it seemed like a last chance!
As a consequence of taking time out to think through the development of
their organisation, the team was able to produce a strategic plan, human
resource management system and a monitoring system for collecting
evidence about their efficiency. Their funding doubled, new funding from
trusts and the Lottery were forthcoming, a stronger, tight-knit staff team
was formed and applications for European funding were drawn up.
36
Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Casestudy
Founder syndrome and stagnation
A refugee who was concerned about asylum seekers from his country
founded this organisation in 1982. The founder was familiar with the UK
system and the way in which it operates. At the time, there was no other
community organisation serving his compatriots in London. The
establishment of the organisation coincided with the arrival of large numbers
of asylum seekers from his country, and during the 1980s, it became the first
point of call for many of them. In 1989, he acquired charitable status for the
organisation.
Funders who were concerned about the plight of these particular newcomers
soon found their way to this organisation. The first funding came from a trust
for volunteer expenses and running costs. This was followed by a grant from
the local authority to cover the salary of a co-ordinator – a position which
was then filled by the founder. He developed good connections with funders
as well as politicians and, in 1990, an additional full-time worker was
funded – they also had one volunteer. The income was £28,000. However,
although the number of asylum seekers from this particular country had not
fallen during the past 10 years, the organisation did not grow. No investment
was made in developing policies for supporting and training staff and no
appropriate monitoring system for service development existed. This
organisation is still run by one worker and its income has increased only from
£28,000 in 1990 to a mere £53,000 in 2000. Activities have stagnated. The
personality and connections, which had served the community so well in the
early days, may well have since become the key factor for the organisation’s
lack of growth.
Casestudy
Harnessing community expertise
This organisation was established to serve new arrivals by a group of
concerned individuals in 1986. It was officially launched in 1987 and
registered as a charity a year later. It started as a mother tongue school and
gradually began to offer advice on welfare issues. The first funding was
quickly received from two trusts to cover the salary of a part-time coordinator and running costs. By 1990, it had this one staff member and two
volunteers with an income of £35,000. The community, which this
organisation represents, is endowed with a large number of highly educated
people whose skills were welcomed by the co-ordinator. The RCO quickly
moved from a small organisation with a single activity to a multifunctional
organisation providing a wide range of services. In doing so, it drew upon the
expertise, skills, and knowledge of members of the community. By the year
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2000, it had employed four full-time and three part-time staff and two
session workers. Thirty-seven volunteers were involved with the
organisation, including ten teachers who teach at four mother tongue
schools in four London boroughs.
Its income is now £246,000. This is a remarkable achievement. Its
services have expanded to cover advice in a variety of areas. It runs a
health centre, which provides information on health, undertakes
translation of health information, and organises seminars by health
professionals. It also runs an elderly and youth project. The RCO
publishes a newspaper, which has a wide circulation, and this enables it
to maintain regular contact with members. In the past six years, the RCO
has carried out two major pieces of research into the needs of their users.
In 1996, it published a survey of the profile, structure, and needs of its
community, which was the first study by an RCO in London. In 1999, it
carried out another study on the health needs of their users. Thus the
organisation is aware that evidence-based work is essential for making
priorities and for raising its profile. Although its client group has been
among the top five nationalities seeking asylum for the past few years,
the management has chosen to direct its energy and resources to
settlement issues. The maintenance of cultural identity and the education
of children remains the central focus of the organisation.
Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
education, training and employment department. They changed their
name, amended the constitution to reflect their new role and within a
short period of time were overwhelmed by the high demands from
refugees and non-refugees who were keen to improve their
employability opportunities. The new department provides support
classes for school children, ESOL classes with basic computer skills for
the unemployed adults, training courses in IT at NVQ Level I and II for
unemployed adults, and advice and career guidance. They employ 34
staff members and have an income of £350,000 per year, which is a
remarkable achievement for a group that started only nine years ago. The
organisation is now well connected to local service providers and
receives funds from DFEE, SRB, TEC, and ESF.
These case studies demonstrate a variety of issues that have to be overcome by
RCOs. A major one is the management of growth and increased demand.
A number of the London sample RCOs were starting from a low base.
Management systems were generally poor. There were few human resource
management systems, and monitoring and evaluation arrangements were weak.
Casestudy
Identifying a market niche
This organisation was set up in 1992 by a group of concerned individuals
in an outer London Borough. It started as a mother tongue and
supplementary school and received its first funding from a small Trust to
cover the running costs of mother tongue classes. The Refugee Council
also provided work placement for its trainees and paid supervision fees.
The RCO became a charity in 1994 as high numbers of asylum seekers
arrived in the borough and its work expanded into the area of advice
around immigration, housing and welfare issues.
The organisation then identified a specific need to help unemployed
refugees gain entry into the labour market so that they could become
more independent. They also wanted to help school children engage
more effectively in the school system by helping to overcome language
and cultural barriers. Thus the management had found a niche in the area
of education, training and employment, which they realised could attract
local, national and European funding provided that they opened their
services to unemployed refugees and non-refugees alike. While
maintaining and in some cases expanding its advice work and outreach
work for housebound women, the RCO decided to open a new
38
Much activity was reactive. Less than half of the sample had written plans. Even
among those with written plans, one third of the plans had no mission
statements, and almost none had any way of systematically prioritising need. One
or two organisations had carried out surveys, but they lacked the skills to use the
findings strategically. As a consequence, staff and funders tended to be the
driving force when it came to deciding future work programmes. Few of the
sample RCOs had quality assurance systems at the time of the research or means
of learning from their activities. The previously mentioned requirements of the
Community Legal Service means that many are now having to implement such
systems.
These results suggest that there is a need to help build their capacity. RCOs were
often aware of this, but said that the everyday resources available for the
traditional voluntary sector were rarely made available for RCOs. This included
access to management support as well as access to funding. Our study shows that
more than 50% of our sample believe that commitment of staff and volunteers is
the most important variable that will help to strengthen their organisations. What
tends to be missing is a strategic approach.
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4
First steps to
integration
o far in this report, we have presented our findings in a factual manner, and
have kept our interpretations to a minimum. In this chapter, we remove this
restriction of detachment, and reflect on the findings giving some normative
judgements in an effort to find a way forward. In this process, we have been
helped considerably by a conference organized by the Evelyn Oldfield Unit on 18
July 2001 at which participants were asked to reflect on the findings of the
research and come up with recommendations.
S
27 Lawry-White, J, Synthesis
of Seven IRSS/NASS
Integration Research
Projects, for the Home
Office, 2001
Before we begin to think about the future, we need first to return to the central
question of this enquiry. We asked "Can communities cope?". Part of the answer
depends on what we are asking communities to cope with. Our starting point was
the issue of refugee "settlement". However, an important study conducted for
the Immigration Research and Statistics Service (IRSS/NASS) at the Home Office
at much the same time as the current one focused on the somewhat stronger
notion of "integration". 27
It will be recalled that, in this report, we have used the Home Office definition of
integration:
‘a long-term, complex, two-way process in which refugees take part in all aspects
of life, while UK society benefits from the potential of the newcomers: this
requires adaptation on both sides. Integration involves the process of acquiring
civil, social, political, human and cultural rights for refugees, while maintaining
their cultural and ethnic diversity. Integration, while encompassing both the
organic and functional aspects of settlement, is not synonymous with assimilation
that is the loss of the refugee’s identity within the host culture’.
This is a useful starting point about what integration is, but tells us little about
how to achieve it, nor how to relate the role of RCOs or any other agency
towards achieving integration.
Criteria for integration
28 Knight, B, Chigudu, H, and
Tandon, R, Reviving
Democracy, Earthscan,
London, 2002
Asylum seekers at English
classes, Liverpool 2000
A model of successful integration in society has been developed by Knight,
Chigudu and Tandon.28 The model is based on empirical work in 47 countries
across the globe, and has been developed and tested with more than 10,000
citizens, many of whom were refugees. In brief, the study suggests that three
factors need to be met before integration can occur.
First, basic needs have to be met. These include material factors such as food,
clothing and shelter, but also include basic human rights and security. Second, the
need for human association, to have relationships within communities and
between communities where different communities are free to express their
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cultural identities while respecting the different culture of others. Third, people
need to be citizens in the fullest sense, and have the opportunity to have their
voices heard and their views respected.
In order to help their client group settle and become integrated into the host
society, it is important that RCOs are not marginalised by funders or other
mainstream organisations. Analysis of our data shows that RCOs have good links
with other refugee agencies, forums and networks but when it comes to
relationships or partnerships with local authorities, housing departments, health
authorities, local CVS, and other mainstream organisations, there is little contact
apart from funding and referral relationships. In fact, RCOs felt disempowered by
their fragile contacts. Only three organisations sat on local authority steering
committees and one on that of an education department. They sometimes felt
that they were not true partners and were nothing more than symbolic
participants.
These three factors – basic needs, association, and participation – were, according
to Knight and colleagues, the cornerstone of a good society. The three factors
were interlinked, and formed a series of three building blocks, with basic needs
forming the bedrock, association in the middle, and participation at the top.
A visual representation of the model is shown in Diagram 1. This relates the
activities performed by RCOs to the model developed.
Our research suggests that RCOs have had much to contribute towards refugee
settlement, but have done much less in terms of integration. We have found that
RCOs have performed vital functions in meeting the basic needs of refugees and
enabling them to associate with one another. This has enabled refugees to settle.
However, they were much less effective in creating the mechanisms for
participation in the political processes that would redress power imbalances and
enable them to take part as full and equal members of society. To put this a
slightly different way, RCOs were strong on "within group" activity, yet weak on
"between groups" activity. The consequence is that RCOs provide a safe haven;
not a means for changing the system. As far as traditional UK power structures
go, RCOs are marginal. Like many community groups, RCOs enable refugees to
contend with their adverse situation, but they can do little to transform the
situation so that refugees feel part of normal life.
Diagram 1
Participation
Association
Basic needs
From Diagram 1, we can see that RCOs are meeting the ‘basic needs’ of their
users and they are creating opportunities for them to ‘associate’ and feel part of a
community. There is little activity, however, in that area identified as the need to
‘participate’. The RCOs’ apparent lack of access to policy analysis material,
dispersal statistics and information about policy and procedures of statutory
bodies confirms this.
RCOs can provide ‘basic needs’ and ‘associational’ activities, which enable
members to celebrate and interact, without having many relationships or
partnerships with host agencies. But in order to effect change so that asylum
seekers and refugees can have a stake in society, a place in the public domain and
a possibility to influence policy, RCOs have to develop stronger links with
mainstream organisations particularly at policy-making and strategic level.
Positive images
Counselling
Lunch clubs
Cultural identity
Youth work
Supplementary classes
Mental health
Courts
Vocational
Education
Health
Legal/immigration
Welfare
Housing
Our meetings with individual refugees confirmed these findings. Almost all said
that they were not integrated into the host society and that they often felt
isolated. Cultural barriers are difficult to overcome. Refugees, for instance, often
say that Britain can be a lonely place and they
automatically feel excluded. There were, of course,
distinctions made between the old and the young.
Older people still have lingering feelings about
going back to their country of origin and are preoccupied by the need to have the problems back
home solved in order to acquire peace of mind.
Young people have more chance to settle. The most
significant turning point was said to be when young
people acquire the right kind of education to lead to
employment. Interviewees said that young people would have little problem
provided they receive an education where they can mix with other children from
the host community to develop shared understandings and gain qualifications to
find employment. However, interviewees asserted that some schools were turning
children away and that, as a consequence, the dropouts were finding it difficult to
cope with the system.
Refugees often say that
Britain can be a lonely place
and they automatically feel
excluded.
Integration was considered by refugees to be a slow process, beginning at the
moment of arrival, continuing through the asylum period, and way beyond.
Employment was seen as the main obstacle. This was true of refugees regardless
of their education level since unemployment rates among educated refugees are
of major concern. Routes to integration were seen as the provision of English
language classes; changing attitudes; recognition and respect for cultural
differences; orientation classes to understand the UK system; education; and
employment.
But the overriding message from RCOs was that they themselves felt marginal
from the process of integration. They observed gaps in their relationships with
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other agencies, yet they knew that their work with mainstream agencies was vital
if they were to make a difference for the settlement and integration of their user
groups.
The best answer may be to take two vital steps to make the process of integration
more effective. The first step concerns the RCOs themselves, to help them do
what they do best, which is to help refugees with their basic needs and to
associate among themselves. There is a clear agenda for building the capacity of
RCOs so that they can perform these jobs better. There is a case for more
investment in RCOs, though it is not just a question of money. There needs to be
much more training and consultancy available to RCOs to prevent burn-out of
the leadership, to work on matters of organizational development, and to help
with evaluation and accountability. Many RCOs are working at full-stretch and
have little time to stand back and evaluate their work. What they do in terms of
providing for basic needs and association could be strengthened.
As we have seen, meeting basic needs and assisting with the processes of
association help considerably with settlement. However, such activities appear to
be a necessary but not a sufficient condition of integration. If we go back to the
Home Office sponsored study, which suggested that: ‘integration should be
recognised as a two-way process in which both parties are players’, it becomes
clear that the second step therefore concerns getting the host community to play
its part both in terms of supporting individual refugees and in terms of supporting
their RCOs.
It was evident, particularly in the dispersal areas, that mainstream institutions
were not geared up to deal with the issue of refugees. Institutions were, for the
most part, pursuing their agenda without regard to the needs of the new
communities among them. They need to adjust their behaviour so that refugees
become one of their target groups. This applies particularly to matters of
education and employment which carry the greatest potential benefits for matters
of real integration. There is a need for investment in the civic infrastructure so
that refugee interests are present in the minds of the various elites who take
decisions about regeneration, planning and service delivery. The place to begin
here is with regional government, perhaps by increasing the Home Office capacity
– staff and funding packages - in regional offices to ensure that the voice of RCOs
is represented at strategic and regional or local policy-making levels. The objective
would be to ensure that refugee issues are firmly placed in criteria for funding
programmes and included in community participation strategies of a variety of
initiatives including Regional Development Agencies, Local Strategic Partnerships,
and New Deal for Communities Programmes and other initiatives that address
civic issues of health and safety within the local and health authorities and Police.
Down the track, this would ensure that RCOs not only get a fairer slice of the
funding cake – which they do not at present – but also that refugee issues would
have greater legitimacy in the search for a better society in which all citizens,
regardless of their origins, feel that they have a stake in a vibrant multi-cultural
and multi-racial society that is Britain in the future.
Zairean refugee protesting
against the Asylum Bill
outside the Home Office.
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5
Recommendations
t is clear from the foregoing analyses that the matter of refugee integration is
difficult. There can be no quick fix or set of policy recommendations that will
deliver a strategy to solve the refugee question in the short term. The issue is
far too complex.
I
Nevertheless, there are some pointers that can be derived from the data. One key
factor is the perception of the issue. At present, the refugee question is perceived
a problem. Why need it be? One of the ways forward is to cast the issue of
refugees as part of the solution in creating a vibrant multi-cultural society in
which people learn to live with one another and benefit from the differences
between different backgrounds.
The fact is that many refugees have highly sophisticated political know-how and
skills that have value in the labour market. The current study reveals that refugees
– through their own self-organising in RCOs - are part of the solution of the skills
gap. At present, this solution can only be partial because the skills and talents of
such refugees derive first and foremost from their own cultural perspectives.
Being given the opportunity to learn about engaging at different levels in the UK,
including at the policy level, must also be a pre-requisite for developing
transformative action.
Our recommendations stem from this perspective. They are addressed to different
levels within the system, beginning with the government.
Home Office
The Home Office has the lead responsibility within government for refugees. It
follows that recommendations to government must be addressed to them,
though the success of any integration strategy needs to involve many other
government departments.
We recommend that the Home Office increases its capacity to deal with refugee
settlement and integration issues. This would involve designation of
responsibilities for refugees within regional offices, involving the appointment of
an official at middle management level, plus logistical and administrative support,
a development fund, and a working brief to ensure that refugees’ issues are
included in arrangements for the neighbourhood regeneration strategy. The
Home Office could use its good offices to ensure that refugees are represented in
the regeneration partnerships locally. The unique Home Office contribution could
be to create an RCO fund to enable new and emerging RCOs. An additional
strategy would be to ensure that refugee matters are included in the portal
strategy for funding opportunities from government departments.
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
Refugee intermediaries
A key task for organisations whose prime purpose is to help refugees is to increase
the skill levels available to RCOs. One of the best ways to do this would be to
train a cadre of refugees to become trainers, advisers and technical experts in
matters of organisation development, much in the same way as the Evelyn
Oldfield Unit equipped refugee community members with these relevant skills,
through their university-accredited course ‘Training the Trainers’. This would not
only mean that RCOs could have access to advisers who have shared similar
experiences to their own, but it would develop a career route for those refugees
who have been involved in social organisation and development in their own
countries to bring the benefit of their experience to the British scene.
At present, in the delivery of technical assistance, the information flow tends to
be one-way, with British experience being transmitted to RCOs. This is of limited
usefulness, since many RCOs do some things very much better than their host
counterparts. An example from the research is the large number of members,
users and volunteers and their involvement in the development of RCOs.
Although many RCOs lack the trappings of corporate governance and may
therefore leave something to be desired in terms of efficiency, they more than
make up for this in terms of energy. Many British community organisations could
learn from this. A cadre of refugee advisers would open the door to two-way
learning between host communities and refugee communities, since they could
also work with host community and voluntary organisations. The Evelyn Oldfield
Unit’s West London Project is evidence of achievement of this kind, in which it
helped to develop civic action mechanisms and structures in the region, for the
purpose of strategic engagement from grass roots level. Indeed, one route for
refugee advisers might be to join strategic partnerships such as the panel of
Neighbourhood Renewal Advisers recruited by the Neighbourhood Regeneration
Unit. This would add value to the processes of neighbourhood renewal.
A second important task for intermediaries is to target participation as a key result
area. We have seen that RCOs themselves were too busy with fulfilling basic
needs and association to do this. Getting refugees on to the right committees and
similar ways of increasing refugee ‘voice’ in society is a key task for intermediary
organisations such as the Evelyn Oldfield Unit, Refugee Action, and Refugee
Council.
RCOs
It is difficult to generalise about what RCOs should do. Because RCOs are often
working at the limit of their capacity, it is difficult to suggest that they do more.
Moreover, RCOs are heterogeneous. As we have seen, some RCOs are large and
well-established with a significant amount of funding, while others are small, new,
and struggling to obtain resources. A critical divide is between London-based
RCOs and those in the provinces.
The greatest need is in the provinces and that is where the bulk of the effort
should be targeted. It is important that RCOs there, in partnership with
intermediaries, infiltrate the networks, so that they can influence the host
community and obtain resources from their work. At present, it is all too easy for
host communities to ignore refugee issues in the regions, and RCOs need to
create a voice to make themselves heard by, for instance, standing for election to
the boards of regeneration partnerships and other government schemes. This is
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difficult and cannot be done without help. RCOs in London have been fortunate
in having a number of enlightened funders, both in the charitable and in the
statutory sector, and similar enlightened funders are needed in the regions.
APPENDIX A
SAMPLE USED FOR THE LONDON INTERVIEWS
There may be some mileage in using well-established RCOs in London to help less
well-developed RCOs in the regions. This is only a partial solution since Londonbased RCOs are themselves stretched, and it would cost money to travel to the
regions. However, there are good practice role models that could be disseminated
in the regions. With the provision of funding, RCOs could be enabled to
contribute to the dissemination itself. But this could only happen with additional
resourcing, perhaps as part of sectoral civic action projects.
Twenty-two RCOs were interviewed in London. The criteria used for their
selection were:
• RCOs that serve new arrivals.
• RCOs that serve the most frequent nationalities seeking refuge in Great Britain.
This information is derived from the Home Office statistics taken over the past
two years.
Host community
The host community holds the key. It has a job to do to sensitise itself to the
needs of refugees within its midst. Without the perspective of RCOs, any initiative
would be a one-sided affair, at best a jumping-on-the-band-wagon. There is an
onus on host community institutions to generate opportunities for mutual
learning that might stimulate integrative engagement. The Home Office should
adopt a strategy to make sure that refugee issues are on the agenda of all
development agencies and that refugees are included in all levels of government
programmes. Refugees need to be in the mainstream, not on the margins.
• RCOs whose users live in the London boroughs with the highest numbers of
refugees (see Appendix B for details).
Roma refugee family in
temporary accommodation
as part of the dispersal
programme, Liverpool,
September 2000
The original planned size of the sample was 30 but the number interviewed was
reduced to 22 because three RCOs were closing down, and five were too
overworked to participate, or were having difficulties within their organisation.
Therefore, we consider that the remaining 22 organisations that took part in this
research can be regarded as stable organisations.
The following organisations were interviewed:
• Afghan Association of London
• Association for Sierra Leonean Refugees
• Barnet Somali Community Group
• Chinese Information and Advice Centre
• CORA
• East London Somali Association
• Eritrean Community in Haringey
• Ethiopian Community in Britain
• Halkevi Turkish and Kurdish Community Centre
• Haringey Somali Community and Cultural Association
• Iranian Association
• Iraqi Community Association
• Islington Zairian Group
• Refugee Advice Centre
• Society of Afghan Residents in the UK
• South London Tamil Group
• Sudanese Community and Information Centre
• Tamil Refugee Action Group
• Tamil Relief Centre
• Turkish Education Group
• West London Kurdish Association
• Zairian Congolese Cultural and Community Association
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APPENDIX B
INTERVIEW SCHEDULES
Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
15. How many do you have currently?
16. How many did you have five years ago?
17. How many rooms do you have available to you?
ORGANISATION:
1. Address
Do you have:
Total number of rooms
Yes/No
Number
Community hall
Interview rooms
2. Legal status
3. Do you know how your organisation started?
Training/education rooms
Other non-office (specify)
18. What is your rent (per annum)?
4. Date established
5. Date of registration as a charity or other (specify) organisation
19. What funding do you have at the moment?
6. Do you have a board of management?
Amount
Funding source
Core funding
Project (s)
7. How many men and how many women members of the board are there?
8. How are they recruited?
9. How often do you have: management committee meetings?
An AGM?
(Pick up copy of Annual report and Accounts: 1999/00 finances)
20. Which policies and procedures do you find difficult to implement?
10. When was your last AGM?
11. What is your Mission?
21. Why?
12. How many staff do you have?
Full-time:
Part-time:
13. Volunteers?
14. Do you have a list of Members?
50
22. Do you have a plan?
Three year or one year?
Written
Verbal
None
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Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
23. Can you describe some of the most important milestones in the development
of your organisation?
Check key historical points of evolution of community in relation to the
development of the organisation.
Prompt with following after answer.
e.g.
1st meeting: when; who was involved?
1st funding: when
1st paid staff: when; which posts?
For computer:
-newly arrived communities
-or history of exile
USERS
NEEDS/PROBLEMS OF USERS
24. Which borough(s) do most of your users come from?
28. What are the most important needs of your users at the moment?
25. How many used the project in the past year?
29. How have the needs of your users changed over the years?
26. Do you keep records of users?
Countries of origin
30. How do you assess needs?
Researcher note: have any formal needs assessment been carried out - yes/no
Ethnic background
Religion
31. How do you prioritise the needs that you are able to respond to?
Languages
32. Do your users feel integrated into the host community?
27. Of the numbers of people you worked with last year, what percentage were
Asylum seekers
33. If yes, what factors help this to happen?
Settled communities
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34. What things need to happen before your users can become integrated?
Probe – check whether the numbers include repeat users and separate if possible
– use statistics for 1999 (same as annual report)
39. What amount of time is given to these activities?
35. Where do your referrals come from?
Researcher – try to get rough estimate e.g. one day a week for housing advice,
half a day for welfare benefits.
Community advocacy and community development activities:
ACTIVITIES
36. To whom do you refer your users?
NUMBERS
MAIN BENEFICIARIES
Mother-tongue classes
Supplementary classes
ACTIVITIES
Positive images work
37. Do you offer your users any material support
(check for access to Trust small grants)?
Youth work
Help in accessing statutory/local services:
Cultural identity work:
• Dance
• Drama
• Arts
Psychological/counselling
38. Do you offer advice in the following and who are the main users of each
service?
Lunch clubs
ACTIVITIES
Health –
primary, secondary
40. What amount of time is given to these activities?
Mental health
NUMBERS
MAIN BENEFICIARIES
Access to employment:
ACTIVITIES
NUMBERS
MAIN BENEFICIARIES
Housing
Vocational training
Education
English classes
Skills development
Vocational training
Welfare benefits
Legal services (immigration)
Accompany to courts
54
41. What amount of time is given to these activities?
42. Do you carry out advocacy, campaigning, lobbying? How much?
43. Do you carry out any other Public policy work?
(If so, probe, e.g., research, briefings)
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44. Do you provide housing units?
(If so, probe)
51. Have you seen any changes for your client group as a result of the new
legislation?
45. Out of all of the activities that you do, which are the three most important?
52. What major changes for your client group do you foresee in the next two
years as a result of the legislation?
ADDITIONAL WORK DUE TO LEGISLATION
53. What major changes for your organisation do you foresee in the next two
years as a result of the legislation?
46. What have been the changing needs of your organisation over the years?
(Probe and get beneath money and try to reveal how the needs have changed)
NEEDS/PROBLEMS OF ORGANISATION
47. What additional work did you expect because of the new legislation?
54. How has your organisation changed over the years in response to community
changes?
55. What are the needs of the organisation at the moment?
48. Can you identify requests you have had to respond to as a result of the
legislation?
56. What support is required to help solve these problems?
49. Or any specific activities you have had to develop
57. Where do you get that support at the moment?
50. In what ways are they triggered by the new legislation?
58. What are the three main factors that help the development of your
organisation?
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59. What are the three factors that hinder that development?
Refugee Settlement: can communities cope?
61. How do these relationships contribute to the effectiveness of your work?
62. What gaps are there?
RELATIONSHIPS/NETWORKS WITH OTHERS
60. What kind of partnerships or relationships do you have with:
(Probe how they are formalised)
Local authorities:
63. How could these gaps be filled? (Relate this question to the future role of
EOU)
QUALITY ASSURANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Education departments:
64. Impact:
• how do you see your own achievements since the organisation began?
Social services:
• what impact do you think you have made?
Housing departments:
• upon whom?
Local schools:
65. What kind of user involvement do you have in your organisation?
Health authorities/trusts:
66. How do you ensure the quality of services to your users?
Researcher: check if they are using a quality assurance system
Refugee agencies:
Refugee forums:
Refugee networks:
CVS:
Mainstream voluntary organisations:
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How board members
are elected
7
By appt and nomination and election at AGM
Charity
.
.
.
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1984 1990
6
3
Nomination and election at AGM
52
Charity
1984 1984
6
1
Nomination and election at AGM
8
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1984 1984
2
5
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1985 1993
14
4
By appt and nomination and election at AGM
9
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1985 1991
8
3
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity
1985 1991
5
2
Nomination and election at AGM
6
Charity
1987 1988
6
7
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity
1989 1989
6
3
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1989 1990
8
2
Nomination and election at AGM
6
Charity
1990 .
7
2
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity
1991 1994
6
2
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1991 1997
.
3
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1992 .
3
4
Nomination and election at AGM
6
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1992 1993
5
4
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity
1992 1994
10
2
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity
1993 1993
6
7
Nomination and election at AGM
6
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1993 1996
8
1
Nomination and election at AGM
4
Not yet a charity
1994 .
9
4
Nomination and election at AGM
12
Charity
1994 1994
5
2
Nomination and election at AGM
12
1995 1996
5
3
Nomination and election at AGM
6
131
71
Total
60
1983 .
Management
meetings per year
Females on Board
6
Date established
Charity and company limited by guarantee 1981 .
Legal status
Males on Board
Date of charity registration
APPENDIX C
THE ORGANISATIONS IN THE RESEARCH STUDY
12
.